2017 Topps Opening Day is a worthy kickoff to the season

Topps is reading to ring the bell on the start of a new season with the releasing of its appropriate titled 2017 Opening Day baseball set. Emblazoned with their classic Opening Day logo, this 200-card set serves as a celebration of when baseball fans around the country can do more than stare out their windows awaiting the start of the regular season.

2017 Topps Opening Day / Topps

Condensed from the 2017 Topps Series 1 version, Opening Day provides collectors the opportunity to have a fun and focused product, without having to worry about chasing short prints or open multiple boxes to complete a set. The 36-pack box sent for this review yielded a complete set amidst an array of inserts with about 20 duplicates of the base set to spare.

This year’s Opening Day set is rather kid friendly with inserts of each MLB team’s ballpark food staple, as well as Mascot cards for each team, with some lucky fans unearthing signed ones. While traditional collectors might scoff at the idea of a signed Mascot card being one of the hits, plenty of youngsters will enjoy this niche in 2017 Opening Day.

2017 Topps Opening Day Bryce Harper / Topps

In addition to the box yielding a complete set, more difficult inserts such as a Bryce Harper National Anthem card (1:244 packs) and an Opening Day Stars Kris Bryant card (1:27 packs) were other bonuses that added to the excitement of this product. The blue foil tinged Opening Day inserts have a nice finishing touch with the April 2, 2017 or April 3, 2017 commencement specially placed on the card.

A sampling of 2017 Topps Opening Day Inserts / Topps

With a price point around $30 per box and the opportunity to pull autographs of some of the game’s top young stars, as well as a tremendous variety of enjoyable inserts, 2017 Topps Opening Day is a family orientated product designed to engage fans of all ages.

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Jose 'Tony' Zardón, eldest living Cuban major leaguer passes away at 94

Jose Zardón, a native Cuban who was the last living member of the 1945 Washington Senators, passed away March 21, 2017 in Tamarac, Florida. He was 94.

Affectionately nicknamed "Guineo" for his blazing speed that was akin to the local hen in Cuba, he first played in the United States in 1944 when the legendary scout Joe Cambria signed him to the Washington franchise. After playing one season in the minor leagues, the Senators minted the fleet-footed outfielder as a major leaguer in 1945, seeking to take advantage of his ability to cover the vast depths of Griffith Stadium. 

Jose Zardon at his home in 2012 / N. Diunte

With major league rosters depleted due to World War II enlistments, Zardón and his Cuban teammates with the Senators became pioneers of sorts, giving the club in the nation's capitol an integrated team a year prior to the Brooklyn Dodgers signing Jackie Robinson. While there were other Cubans who preceded Zardón in the major leagues, their solid performance further opened the pipeline for his countrymen to follow.

In his only major league season, Zardón batted .290 in 131 at-bats, while making some tremendous catches in the outfield. Throughout the remainder of the 1940s and early 1950s, he spent his winters playing for the Almendares and Havana clubs in Cuba, as well as two seasons in Venezuela. He remained active in the minor leagues, spending another ten seasons as both a player and a manager before retiring in 1955.

Great detail of Zardón's career is profiled in the SABR book, "Who's on First: Replacement Players in World War II." In 2012, I had the opportunity to visit Zardon at his Florida home to discuss his career, where in his jovial fashion, he shared a story about how he stole first base after a famous Cuban sportswriter doubted his hitting abilities. The video, which is linked below, is a taste of Zardon's warm character which was appreciated by all who met him. 

* Ed Note - In the above SABR interview, Zardon admitted that his birth year was 1922, not 1923 as listed in the official baseball database.

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2017 Topps Heritage hooks hobbyists with a simple approach

Cut in the aesthetically pleasing style of the 1968 Topps design, Topps’ 2017 Heritage is a throwback to a season that was defined by the mound dominance of Bob Gibson and his miniscule 1.18 ERA. While the feel of the set doesn’t quite have the aggressiveness of Gibson’s fastball, it is the simplicity of the overall package that will attract collectors to this year’s issue.

While some of Topps’ other releases feel like a parade of bells and whistle with all kinds of shiny inserts, the traditional aspect of Topps Heritage is what keeps collectors coming back to this product. Nuances like the puzzles of Kris Bryant and Mike Trout on the back of the All-Star cards, as well as the action and letter variations are the right amount of diversity to make you pay attention to the details without losing sight of what brought you to the product in the first place.

Buster Posey Action Variation / Topps

A certain gem of 2017 Topps Heritage is the selections for the dual and triple Real-One autographed cards. Lucky individuals will garner a signed card of the fantasy Hall of Fame battery of Nolan Ryan and Johnny Bench. Others so fortunate will pull signed cards by three franchise Hall of Famers, with the Cardinals supplying Steve Carlton, Orlando Cepeda, and Lou Brock on the same card, while the Baltimore Orioles put out stalwarts Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, and Jim Palmer on another. These multi-signed cards are highly desirable pieces that could easily serve as the cornerstones of many hobbyists collections.

Nolan Ryan / Johnny Bench Dual Signed Card / Topps

Set collectors however, will face a major challenge in completing the 500-card set. The yield from the 24-pack box is well short of the fifty percent mark, further complicated by the 100 short printed cards at the end of the set. The box provided for this review only yielded eight short prints, which will undoubtedly force collectors to the secondary market to finish things off.

A selection of 2017 Topps Heritage Short Prints / Topps

A cool touch to the box provided for this review was the addition of a 1968 Topps buyback card, further connecting the past with the present as intended by the theme of the Heritage set. While hoping for one of the aforementioned dual autographs, this box yielded a Clubhouse Collection relic card of Miami Marlins slugging outfielder, Giancarlo Stanton.

Don McMahon 1968 Topps Buyback / Topps

Giancarlo Stanton Clubhouse Collection Relic / Topps

Despite the fact that a set will be difficult to build out of one, or even two boxes, the clean and simple design combined with the possibility of pulling a monumental autograph should push collectors to explore the depths of the 2017 Topps Heritage release well into the regular season.

 

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Former Met Anthony Young says brain tumor has shrunk

Former New York Mets pitcher Anthony Young, who gained notoriety in the early 1990s by setting a major league record with 27 consecutive losses, announced in late January 2017 that he had an inoperable brain tumor. Speaking with radio host Bill Donohue on New York’s WGBB 1240 AM, Young gave listeners an update on his condition.

“I was having blurred vision and my wife took me to the emergency room,” Young said. “They found out that I had a brain tumor in my brain stem, which is too dangerous to try to get a biopsy, so we treated it like it was cancer.”

Anthony Young / Mets

After two months of receiving chemotherapy and radiation, Young is now following a plan to recovery that includes a five day regimen of chemo 23 days apart. Determined not to let his diagnosis affect his life, Young continued to work the entire time since starting his treatment.

“I’m doing great,” he said. “I never got sick, I drove myself every day to chemo. I never missed a day of work. I go to work every day. … Everything is going fine. I had a MRI the other day and the tumor actually shrunk some.”

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Why 2017 Topps Baseball fortifies their place as the gold standard in baseball cards

With Kris Bryant brazenly fortifying the cover of 2017 Topps Baseball, Topps is making a clear signal of their expectations for their flagship product. Promoting this year’s theme of having fans, “rediscover Topps baseball,” the quality of this set is exhibit A as to why 2017 is a perfect time to fall in love with baseball card collecting.

2017 Topps Series 1 / Topps

The 350-card base set, book-ended by Bryant and David Ortiz, features action-packed photos of key players across the league. Sharp collectors will notice that Topps reinserted card number seven back into the checklist, placing New York Yankees phenom Gary Sanchez in the spot previously skipped or reserved for Mickey Mantle since 1996.

No matter how impressive the clear and crisp layout of the base set appears, 2017 Topps Baseball's true gem is the 1987 Topps 30th anniversary parallels. Designed in the wood motif of the most fashioned set of the 1980s, the glossy updated look and feel of the 30th anniversary parallels are sure to attract collectors for both nostalgic and aesthetic reasons. Some collectors would go as far to argue that Topps could have made the entire base set a throwback to the 1987 design.

Topps keeps tradition by creating a wide array of inserts and parallels to keep collectors interested past compiling the base set. The expansive Topps Salute 100-card insert set presents a beautiful chronology of the past season, and the Five Tool subset highlights the ultra-talented superstars that excel in many facets of the game.

2017 Topps Inserts / Topps

Each box promises one autograph or relic card. The box provided for this review uncovered an autographed Jose Canseco 1987 Topps 30th anniversary card. Canseco’s original 1987 Topps card was one of the most iconic in the set, the card emblazoned with a Topps Rookie Cup picturing the young slugger eagerly sitting in the dugout. The 30th anniversary autographed version featured a Canseco orbiting a trademark moon shot with a bold signature on the card.

One of the more awesome things to come out of 2017 #ToppsBaseball is this 1987 #Topps style @JoseCanseco signed card. pic.twitter.com/1Qldb0IdPo

— N. Diunte (@ExamineBaseball) February 4, 2017

Set builders will be happy with the collation, as a box came up only 30 cards short of a 350-card complete set; however, the cards were condition sensitive, as quite a few had dinged corners fresh out of the pack. Buoyed by the stunning 1987 retro cards, collectors will easily overlook a few soft corners as they are quickly reminded why Topps remains the industry gold standard.

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